[QUOTE]Well, if i have asthma, or any number of other respiratory diseases, a whiff of smoke can have far reaching consequences.
True, but should we make laws with only the most fragile people in mind? Would this mean that any activity that harms anybody should be prohibited?
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Furthermore, the thickheaded insistance that longterm secondhand exposure to a known carcinogen is harmless
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OK, but harmless is different than killing people, yes? Is your standard we should ban activities that harm people? Because again, there are a lot of activities that harm people that we allow to continue. Some that you might even participate in.
The question then becomes, how much harm should be required before we prohibit an activity? We need an answer to that question before we should consider banning anything.
For example, rape is harmful. I would say that rape clearly rises to the level of harm required for it to be prohibited. Cigarette smoking, I think, clearly isn't as harmful as rape.
So what is the minimum level of harm required before banning something?